ORANGE TREE THEATRE ANNOUNCES FURTHER PROGRAMMING FOR THE RECOVERY SEASON WITH NEW PROGRAMMING UNTIL AUGUST 2022 AS PART OF ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY YEAR
With the return of Terence Rattigan’s While The Sun Shines currently running at the Orange Tree Theatre, Artistic Director Paul Miller and Executive Director Hanna Streeter today announce further programming for The Recovery Season.In celebration of the theatre’s 50th Anniversary Year from 31 December 2021, the Museum of Richmond will host an exhibition OT:50 50 Years of the Orange Tree, to honour the anniversary, which opens on 15 December 2021 and runs until 31 August 2022.
The season opens with the world première of Sonali Bhattacharyya’s Two Billion Beats directed by Nimmo Ismail, followed by Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Tom Fooldirected by Diyan Zora. Oscar Toeman directs the UK première of Pamela Carter’s The Misfortune of the English;and completing the season, Miller directs the first major revival of Martin Crimp’s translation of The False Servant by Pierre Marivaux. Each production will be available to watch livestreamed or on-demand thanks to the continuation of OT On Screen, allowing greater access for audiences far and wide to connect with the OT digitally.
Paul Miller says today “The next stage of our Recovery Season sees a classic OT mix of new plays, emerging artists, internationalism, a European classic and a new Community Festival. We are all reconnecting with society and seeing the world from new perspectives, and in our 50th anniversary year, this season at the OT aims to further this process, as we continue to reconnect with our audiences and the artists who make theatre happen. The great Recovery continues!”
Following the success of its run at the OT, Michele Lee’s Rice – in co-production with Actors Touring Company and in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth, will embark on a UK tour. With direction from ATC Artistic Director Matthew Xia, the production opens at The Drum Theatre on 4 February before touring to Oxford, Scarborough, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and culminating in York.
The OT Community programme continues its work offering theatre classes across a range of age groups from babies to over 60s, bringing people together, building confidence and providing an opportunity to have fun, learn and create work together. OT Community will present Play On: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for primary and secondary schools. The OT’s Community groups will come together in August 2022 for performances in a Community Festival.
WORLD PREMIÈRE
TWO BILLION BEATS
by Sonali Bhattacharyya
Directed by Nimmo Ismail
5 February – 5 March
OT On Screen: Thursday 24 February at 7.30pm
Seventeen-year-old Asha is an emphatic rebel, unafraid of pointing out the hypocrisy around her but less sure how to actually dismantle it. Her younger sister, Bettina, wide-eyed and naïve, is just trying to get through the school day without getting her pocket money nicked. Between essays, homework, and bus journeys home the two sisters meet outside the school gates each afternoon, smarting at the injustice of the world around them.
Bouncing with wit, Sonali Bhattacharyya’s mesmerising new play is an insightful, moving and tremendously funny coming-of-age story about the unfairness of growing up in a world where you don’t make the rules.
Originally presented as a short play as part of the OT’s Inside/Outside livestreams in 2021 the play has been further developed into a full-scale production.
Sonali Bhattacharyya was 2018 Channel 4 writer in residence at the Orange Tree, where she wrote Chasing Hares, winning the Sonia Friedman Production Award and Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award. Her credits include Megaball (National Theatre Learning), Slummers (Cardboard Citizens/Bunker Theatre), 2066 (Almeida Theatre), The Invisible Boy (Kiln Theatre) and White Open Spaces (Pentabus Theatre).
Nimmo Ismail’s work includes Glee & Me, The Christmas Star (Royal Exchange Theatre), Fragments, My England (Young Vic), and SNAP (The Old Vic).
TOM FOOL
by Franz Xaver Kroetz
Directed by Diyan Zora
12 March – 16 April
OT On Screen: 7 April at 7.30pm
“I’d like to climb out of my skin, if I could.”
Every night Martha listens to the minute details of husband Otto’s day at the factory. He’s a man with big dreams, stuck in a job where he feels like a cog in the machine. Their teenage son Ludwig just wishes he had a job, or at least his own space, far far away from his parents.
They are each frustrated with a life they can’t seem to escape.
When money goes missing, a family on the brink hurtles over the edge, and Martha has to decide whether she will stay to pick up the pieces.
A dark and unnervingly funny play about how capitalism creeps into the minutiae of one family’s life, just at the moment women started to change the rules of the game.
Franz Xaver Kroetz is an author, playwright, actor and director and Germany’s most frequently performed playwright. He has written over 60 plays including The Nest, Through the Leaves, Game Crossing, Michi’s Blood, Persistent, Men’s Business, Farmyard, Global Interest, Upper Austria, Dear Fritz, Neither Fish Nor Flesh, Munich Child and Request Concert.
Diyan Zora was the 2021 winner of the Genesis Future Directors Award and directed Klippies (Young Vic). Other theatre credits include Othello (Barons Court Theatre); and as an associate director, her work includes Faith, Hope and Charity and Love (National Theatre).
UK PREMIÈRE
THE MISFORTUNE OF THE ENGLISH
by Pamela Carter
Directed by Oscar Toeman
25 April – 28 May
OT On Screen: Thursday 12 May at 7.30pm
“Guten Tag meine Herren und Frauen von Freiburg, von Deutschland. We have travelled here from London, England. You may have heard of it.”
On the morning of 17 April 1936, a group of 27 schoolboys, led by their teacher and newly arrived in Nazi Germany, set out on the first of a seven-day walking tour of the Black Forest.
By 8pm that evening, local villagers were searching for them in a blizzard.
“You did say you wanted to take the scenic route.”
Inspired by true events: a story of (mis)adventure and blind optimism, nationhood, and courage in the face of disaster.
Pamela Carter is a playwright and dramaturg. Her work includes Lines (Year Theatre), Fast Ganz Nah/Almost Near (Theater Dresden), Skåne (Hampstead Theatre), What We Know (Traverse Theatre), Wildlife (Magnetic North), Them! (National Theatre of Scotland), The Male Queen (Lyceum Theatre/RSC). Her work for Untitled Projects and long-term collaborator Stewart Laing include The End of Eddy, Slope, Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Arguments About Sex (After Marivaux). As a dramaturg, she has worked with Graeae Theatre, Vanishing Point Theatre, The Pappy Show, DAU Films, Malmö Opera and National Theatre of Scotland.
Oscar Toeman returns to the Orange Tree to direct, having previously directed The Sugar Syndrome for the company. His other theatre credits include, Actually (Trafalgar Studios), After October and Laburnum Grove (Finborough Theatre). He is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center’s Directors Lab in New York, an MGCfutures Bursary recipient, and an Associate at the National Youth Theatre.
THE FALSE SERVANT
by Pierre Marivaux,translated by Martin Crimp
Directed by Paul Miller; Designed by Simon Daw; Lighting Design by Mark Doubleday;
Composer and Sound Design by Elizabeth Purnell
8 June – 23 July
OT On Screen: Thursday 7 July at 7.30pm
When a man thinks he can cynically take a rich woman’s money and then run off with an even more lucrative potential fiancée, he’d best not tell the fiancée by mistake.
Le Chevalier, a woman disguised as the son of an aristocrat, embarks on a plan that will expose the dark heart of this male power-play.
Martin Crimp’s previous work for the Orange Tree includes the world première of Play House and a revival of Definitely the Bahamas. His other plays include When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Men Asleep, The Rest Will Be Familiar To You From Cinema, In The Republic of Happiness, The City, Fewer Emergencies, Cruel and Tender, Face to the Wall, The Country, Attempts on Her Life, The Treatment, Getting Attention, No One Sees The Video, Play with Repeats, and Dealing with Clair. His work translating plays includes Gross und Klein, Rhinoceros, The Triumph of Love, The Maid’s, The Chairs, Roberto Zucco, and adaptations of Cyrano de Bergerac and The Misanthrope. His work has been produced in the UK by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, Almeida, Young Vic, Barbican, Complicité, and the Royal Court Theatre, and he was the 2020 winner of the Nyssen-Bansemer Theatre Prize.
Paul Miller directs. As Artistic Director of the Orange Tree, he has directed While The Sun Shines, French Without Tears (also UK tour with ETT), How He Lied to Her Husband, Overruled, Candida, Losing Venice, Humble Boy, Misalliance, The Philanderer, Widower’s Houses, Poison, Lottery of Love, Sheppey, Each His Own Wilderness and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd. He was previously Associate Director at Sheffield Theatres, where his work included Wonderful Tennessee, The Winter’s Tale, The Daughter-in-Law, Democracy, Hamlet and True West. For the National Theatre, he directed The History Boys (West End revival and UK tour), Baby Girl, DNA, The Miracle, The Enchantment, Sing Yer Heart Out for The Lads and The Associate.
Orange Tree Theatre
Listings
1 Clarence Street, Richmond, TW9 2SA
Box Office: 020 8940 3633 (Mon-Sat, 12-6pm)
ABOUT THE ORANGE TREE THEATRE
The Orange Tree (OT) is an award-winning, independent theatre. Recognised as a powerhouse that creates high-quality productions of new and rediscovered plays, it entertains 70,000 people across the UK every year. In May 2021 the OT reopened with its Recovery Season. As an independent theatre and registered charity that relies on ticket income, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to pose significant risk to the OT. To support the theatre’s return to a producing powerhouse at this time, it is raising funds through its Recovery Fund.
The OT’s home in Richmond, South West London, is an intimate theatre with the audience seated all around the stage: watching a performance here is truly a unique experience. We believe in the power of dramatic stories to entertain, thrill and challenge us; plays that enrich our lives by enhancing our understanding of ourselves and each other.
As a registered charity (266128) sitting at the heart of its community, we work with 10,000 people in Richmond and beyond through participatory theatre projects for people of all ages and abilities. The Orange Tree Theatre’s mission is to enable audiences to experience the next generation of theatre talent, experiment with ground-breaking new drama and explore the plays from the past that inspire the theatre-makers of the present.
Artistic Director Paul Miller
Executive Director Hanna Streeter
Website orangetreetheatre.co.uk | Email [email protected]
Twitter @OrangeTreeThtr | Facebook/Instagram OrangeTreeTheatre
SEE IT SAFELY
We have been granted the use of Society of London Theatre & UK Theatre’s See It Safely mark. The mark certifies that we are complying with the latest Government and industry COVID-19 guidelines, to ensure the safety of our staff and audiences. You can find out more here https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/covid-19-safety about the measures put in place ready for your visit, and what you will need to know beforehand.
SEASON AT A GLANCE
WHILE THE SUN SHINES
Until 15 January 2022
Mon – Sat 7.30pm (except 24 Nov at 7pm)
Thu & Sat 2.30pm (from 27 Nov)
Additional matinees 24 & 31 Dec at 2.30pm
No performances 25, 27 Dec & 3 Jan
Audio Described performance: Sat 18 Dec 2.30pm
Captioned performance: Tue 14 Dec 7.30pm
PINOCCHIO
14 December – 31 December
Mon – Sat 10am (excluding 25 December)
Tickets from £1, £10, £12, £16
TWO BILLION BEATS
5 February – 5 March 2022
Tue – Sat at 7.30pm (except 9 Feb at 7pm)
Thu & Sat at 2.30pm (from 12 Feb)
Also Mon 7 Feb at 7.30pm
Captioned Performance: Tue 1 March 7.30pm
Audio Described performance: Thu 3 March 7.30pm
OT On Screen:
Livestream: Thu 24 Feb 7.30pm
On Demand: Tue 8 – Fri 11 March
TOM FOOL
12 March – 16 April
Tue – Sat at 7.30pm (except 16 March at 7pm)
Thu & Sat at 2.30pm (from 19 March)
Also Mon 14 March at 7.30pm
Captioned Performance: Tue 5 April 7.30pm
Audio Described performance: Tue 12 April 7.30pm
OT On Screen:
Livestream: Thu 7 April 7.30pm
THE MISFORTUNE OF THE ENGLISH
25 April – 28 May
Tue – Sat at 7.30pm (except 28 April at 7pm)
Thu & Sat at 2.30pm (from 30 April)
Also Mon 25 April at 7.30pm
Captioned Performance: Tue 17 May 7.30pm
Audio Described performance: Thu 19 May 7.30pm
OT On Screen:
Livestream: Thu 12 May 7.30pm
On demand: Tue 31 May – Fri 3 June
THE FALSE SERVANT
8 June – 23 July
Tue – Sat at 7.30pm (except 13 June at 7pm)
Tue, Thu & Sat at 2.30pm (from 16 June)
Captioned Performance: Tue 12 July 7.30pm
Audio Described performance: Thu 14 July 7.30pm
OT On Screen:
Livestream: Thu 7 July 7.30pm
On demand: Tue 26 – Fri 29 July
OT ELSEWHERE
RICE
The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth
4 – 12 February
Box Office: www.theatreroyal.com/venue/the-drum
North Wall, Oxford
18-19 February
Box Office: www.thenorthwall.com
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
4-5 March
Box Office: www.sjt.uk.com
Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield
7-9 March
Box Office: www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/studio-theatre
Unity Theatre, Liverpool
17-19 March
Box Office: www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk
HOME, Manchester
29-30 March
Box Office: www.homemcr.org
Northern Stage, Newcastle
1-2 April
Box Office: www.northernstage.co.uk
York Theatre Royal
13-14 April
Box Office: www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk